


take a break

by rarmaster



Category: Celeste (Video Game), Celeste - Fandom
Genre: Gen, and that alternate version of yourself cares more about your safety than you do, sometimes selfcare is having an alternate version of yourself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 03:05:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17973284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: If you have to watch Madeline fuck up this jump one more time you're going to explode.





	take a break

**Author's Note:**

> well i guess this is the first fanfic for?? celeste?????? SOMEHOW??????? sorry about the messy tags i dunno what i'm doing bc no one else has done it first!!!!!!!

“Okay, this time’s the one,” she says.

You want to believe her, you do, but if you have to watch her slam her face into those spikes one more time you’re literally going to explode.

So.

You grab her by the hand and yank her back away from the ledge before she can jump, all the words you want to say getting lodged in your throat when she yanks her hand back and looks at you, and she looks— _betrayed,_ for half a second.

“Hey!” she says.

You wither under the look. ( _You’re trying to be good. You’re trying to believe in her. You’re trying to not hold her back. You are you are you are._ )

“Please,” you say. “Just. Hang on.”

“Hang on?” she repeats. Her face is still scrunched in something close to anger, or frustration—but honestly with the rate she keeps failing it’s a wonder she isn’t throwing a fit of rage! You’re just inches from that! Her eyes narrow at you and—yeah, okay, that’s usually how her frustration manifests. Quiet, but taking it out on others. “What, you don’t think I can do it?” she challenges, with way more edge than she should be tackling this problem with right now.

“No, I can, I can!” you insist.

“But?” she asks. She takes a meaningful step towards the ledge.

( _It’s not that complicated of a jump, really, the dashes are just a little tricky to time right and the spikes are so very, very close to each other._ )

You fidget, where you stand, shuffling your feet.

“What if you mess up again?” you whisper. “What if we can’t do it? What if…” You aren’t sure what else, but a million terrible things that _could_ go wrong bounce around in your brain. You’re scared. You don’t really know how to be anything else. “Sorry,” you mumble, making yourself small. “Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” she assures you, and she grabs your hands. She squeezes them in hers. “It’s really okay, to be scared, to be scared of failing. But if there’s anything this mountain’s taught me… if there’s anything _you’ve_ taught me… sometimes failing is just step one to success.”

Her smile is nervous, gentle, entirely too warm. You scowl at it. Hunch your shoulders.

“I guess so,” you say. ( _Dragging her to the bottom of the mountain_ was _the best thing you did for the both of you, honestly._ )

She squeezes your hands again.

“We’ve got this,” she insists, and she lets go, and moves to make her jump.

You still feel scared. Scared and frustrated and entirely too high strung. A few words of encouragement can’t make that all go away immediately.

“Stop,” you say.

She does, but you’re definitely trying her patience, based on the glare she shoots back at you.

“I think we should… stop,” you say. That was the wrong thing to say. “Not! Give up, I mean! I don’t want to give up. I just think we should take a break.”

She blinks.

“A break?” she asks, like it hadn’t occurred to her.

You nod.

“Yeah. Just. Sit here, for a moment, and catch our breaths,” you say.

She’s way too reckless right now and keeps making really dumb mistakes. But the high that brought you this far has ebbed out of the both of you, giving way to frustration as the last few challenges the mountain has left prove too great for your exhausted bodies and minds. You need to refresh.

All of that would take… way too much to say, probably.

But Madeline nods, and smiles.

“Yeah, okay,” she says, and she sits down on the ground where she is. You sit down next to her. “A break sounds kind of nice.”

You feel relieved. You reach over, squeeze her hand in yours.

“We _can_ do this,” you tell her, for her sake, for your sake. You try and believe it with all you have. “But we can’t do it if we push ourselves too hard.”

She squeezes your hand back.

“You’re right,” she says. “Thanks for looking out for me.”

You feel so warm and light you think you might just float away.


End file.
